Body Cams Show Police Boxing Up Kittens In Animal Cruelty Case, And Woman Offering To Expose Herself To Avoid Arrest

In footage recorded by police body cameras, a vexed 34-year-old woman tells officers she tossed her kittens out of her house before offering to expose herself and being arrested.

The Times on Wednesday, Oct. 12, received nearly 90 minutes of video footage recorded by police officers’ body cameras depicting their interaction with Lacey L. Williams. The footage was obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request to the Bay City Department of Public Safety.

In the footage, two police officers arrive on Williams’ porch in the 200 block of North Madison at about 10 p.m. on Wednesday, July 20. They had been dispatched there after neighbors called 911 to report Williams had been throwing kittens in the street and had smashed out the windows of two vehicles.

Williams, slurring her words but initially affable enough, opens her door and greets the officers. Stepping onto her porch, she says someone punched her in the eye, but tells the officers she doesn’t know who did it, and that it doesn’t matter.

“I threw some little kittens out,” she then says. An officer asks her why she did that.

“‘Cause I don’t care,” she replied. “I just want to be by myself. I didn’t throw them. I gently threw them down. They have a box out there.”

“Why would you do that?” an officer asks.

“‘Cause I live here,” Williams replies. “I mean, I want them. I can’t afford them. If you want to pay for them, then you can pay for them, but I can’t.”

The footage shows a white van parked in front of Williams’ house with its rear window smashed out. When the officers ask Williams about it, she says doesn’t know whose van it is.

As the footage rolls on, Williams gets more irritable and emotional, alternating between walking around her porch and sitting on its steps. She repeatedly states she didn’t do anything and that her kids aren’t with her. She also tells officers she has warrants for her arrest pending in Detroit.

A male officer stays near Williams while a female officer goes to interview witnesses across the street. At one point, Williams tells the officer with her that she is a stripper and asks him if he wants to see her breasts.

The footage also depicts a man who identifies himself as Williams’ brother who lives across the street walks onto the scene and tries to calm down Williams. He refuses to give officers his name, but tells them his sister threw cat accessories outside, but not the felines themselves.

In searching for witnesses — all of whom had their faces blurred out by public safety personnel before the video was released — the officer encounters some children who have four kittens in a cardboard box. They tell her the kittens’ mother ran off. The officer takes the box with her back across the street to Williams’ house.